Postmodernist theory is all about breaking away from the conventions of the times, not trusting usual areas of knowledge, breaking out of established structures of writing, and seeing that there are many truths and ways for language to be interpreted. Looking at the book through this lens, immediately the multiple narrators (5 in all) are signs of a untraditional story-telling style of a singular narrator. Also, we notice in the telling of the story that every member of the Price family has a narrating voice except Nathan, the Reverend and preacher. This changes the overview of the family in that we only see his actions through his family member's eyes--and therefore we get a biased report, as they speak from their feelings and after punishments such as The Verse. Language is played with by giving us narrative from the perspectives of an adult, teenagers, and a young child, which all invite different levels of maturity, grammar, and bias.
The subject matter of The Poisonwood Bible is of an evangelical Baptist trying to bring religion and overall structure and savior to the Africans in the Congolese town he travels to. This fights (and up to this point, loses) with the unstructured lives of the Congolese people, and in this way embodies the postmodernist spirit with the survival of the lack of structure. The style of the novel also lacks structure, with no numbered chapters and periods of the book which span an afternoon and others which span a month given equal time. Nathan omits from his memory all the instances of his wife trying and succeeding in reaching out to the Congolese, perhaps to feel more important in comparison and independent, and this skews the truth of their respective capabilities.
I agree with pretty much everything you have stated here, and some of it I came across too when I wrote my post. Something that just occurred to me, regarding the narration, is that the MAN in the family, Nathan, doesn't have a voice. Maybe this is more suited towards the gender-studies criticism, but I think it is odd that the man, who, especially 50 years ago, was usually in charge of the family (he did BRING them to the Congo...), doesn't have a voice in the book that explains what they have done in the Congo.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, I didn't look at it through the lens of gender really, but it definitely is something worth noting.
DeleteThe point about the lack of structure was especially interesting. The reader's perception of time and how it has elapsed is slightly different. Although it seems to be in chronological order, it is a little confusing. Also, if Kingsolver valued having multiple narrators why did she only include the Price women? Why not Nathan or one of the more important villagers?
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